The story of Lucia

In recent issues of this magazine we have looked at the lives of these two young   saints-to-be, and told the story of Our Lady’s apparitions in 1917, which were witnessed by these two children and their young cousin, Lucia dos Santos. This month we will talk about Lucia herself, the only living witness to Fatima who is awaiting joyfully the ceremony of beatification, to be held on 13 May.

A key figure

Lucia, who was just ten years old in 1917, was the eldest of the three witnesses to Fatima. Today, she is a cloistered nun, and is 93 years old. She is the key figure in the apparitions at Fatima. It was she who, during the apparitions, spoke to Our Lady. It was to Lucia that, on June 13, 1917, during the second apparition, the Virgin Mary had said: In a short time I will take Francisco and Jacinta up to heaven with me. You, on the other hand, will remain on earth for a great many years to spread the devotion to my Immaculate Heart.
And this is precisely what happened. Francisco died in 1918, and Jacinta in 1920. Lucia is still alive, and she lives with her Carmelite sisters in the Convent of Saint Teresa of Avila in Coimbra, some fifty miles from Fatima. She belongs to a strictly cloistered sisterhood. This means that she can neither leave the monastery, nor receive visits from outsiders. Furthermore, the Vatican has given firm orders regarding Sister Lucia which are even more restrictive than the normal rules of the convent: no outsider is permitted to approach Sister Lucia or communicate with her unless he or she has first received written permission to do so, signed by the Pope.
Only one person is authorised to go and see her two or three times a month, one of her nephews, Fr. José dos Santos Valinho, who is a Salesian priest.

She said that Lucia would have to remain in this world to carry out a special mission. During the second apparition Our Lady said to her: You will remain in this world for a long time yet. Jesus wants people to know me and love me through you. He wants to establish here on Earth a devotion to my Immaculate Heart.
Lucia stayed in Fatima until 1921. But a lot of curiosity surrounded her, and she was often sought out by those who had made the pilgrimage to the site of Our Lady’s apparitions. The bishop, who in the meantime had begun a meticulous investigation into the events of Fatima, believed, and rightly so, that all this unhealthy curiosity directed at the girl, who was only fourteen years old at the time, could damage her development. He therefore advised my grandmother, Lucia’s mother, to send the girl to a convent as a boarder until she had made a decision about her future. My grandmother agreed and so did Lucia. But it was necessary that no one at her new home knew that she was one of the witnesses to Fatima, otherwise this unhealthy curiosity would have continued. The bishop contacted the Sisters of Saint Dorothy, who he knew well. Then he called Lucia and said to her: You mustn’t tell anyone where you are going, and when you reach your new home, you mustn’t let anyone know who you really are, nor should you ever speak to the sisters in the convent about the apparitions.
It was an incredibly difficult request to make, but the 14 year-old Lucia did not hesitate. She only wished to obey because she knew that through the will of the bishop she could find the will of God. I will do everything you ask, she replied.
When she returned home she spoke to no one. Her departure was set for 18 June. She got up at two o’clock in the morning and, accompanied by her mother and her uncle Carreira, she left Fatima. When she passed Cova da Iria, she decided to make a last visit to the site of the apparitions. She said the Rosary and then, with tears in her eyes, she kissed that blessed ground. She went to the convent of the Sisters of Saint Dorothy in Pilar, near Oporto, as a boarder, and received a good cultural and religious education.

Had she already decided to become a nun?
She was strongly attracted by a life of prayer. In truth, she did want to become a cloistered nun, and dedicate her life to contemplation. At the time she didn’t really know much about the way of life in a convent. She thought that nuns were all more or less the same, and that the only difference between one or the other was the cut of their habit.
While Lucia was living with the Sisters of Saint Dorothy, the desire developed within her to become a nun in that Congregation. She put in her request and was accepted. In October 1925, she was sent to Pontevedra, in Spain, where the Sisters of Saint Dorothy had a convent, and there she began her postulancy. The next year she was sent on to a small town near Pontevedra, Tuy, where she completed her postulancy and began her noviciate. On October 3, 1928, she made her religious vows. Later, she returned to Pontevedra where, on October 3, 1934, she professed her solemn vows. Only then did the bishop reveal her true identity as the only living witness to Our Lady of Fatima.

Leiria had revealed her true identity, she could no longer hope to be left in peace. She therefore asked permission to leave the Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Dorothy in order to enter a cloistered nunnery in the Carmelite Order of Saint Teresa of Avila. Her wish was granted, and she moved to the Carmel in Coimbra.

So she changed religious Order?
Precisely. She had to ask for a special dispensation from the Pope. She became a Carmelite on March 25, 1948. That day was the feast of the Annunciation. The Sisters of Saint Dorothy, who were a little put out by the fact that she was leaving, wouldn’t allow her to leave the convent wearing the habit of their Congregation. Lucia had to wear ordinary clothes. She moved to the Carmel that night. She was taken there by some friends, and arrived at four o’clock in the morning.

When the car arrived at that unusual hour, the gatekeeper saw a tiny, ill-dressed woman get out and thought to herself: I have no intention of hugging or kissing her! But, as she later recalled: When she passed nearby, I felt compelled to do so, and so I did. Only later did I learn that this was Sister Lucia.
I myself was, at that time, in the Salesian University, in Turin. Some days after she entered the Carmel, my aunt wrote to me to tell me where she was. She said she was very happy, because she felt she had found her home.
In 1946, before I left for Italy, I had gone to see her while she was still with the Sisters of St. Dorothy. We spoke then as we had spoken many times before. She hadn’t said anything to me about her departure, but when the time came for me to leave, I noticed that she was more affectionate than usual. She hugged me and kissed me, something she had never done before. Perhaps she thinks Italy is on the other side of the world, I thought to myself. When she later wrote to me from the Carmel to tell me that she was now in a Papal cloister, I understood. That was the last time she could hug me or kiss me.

Can’t you hug her or kiss her when you go to see her now?
No. although I can see her and speak to her, there is always a thick grille dividing us.

What do you talk about?
She asks about her closest relatives, and her nephews and nieces. She is a very affectionate and considerate aunt. And I talk to her about people who have asked for her prayers.

Has Sister Lucia continued to take an interest in the shrine at Fatima since she withdrew into the seclusion of the convent?
Certainly. We only know what happened at the time of the apparitions because Lucia has talked of the events in detail. When put under heavy questioning immediately after the apparitions she had told just the bare minimum. The rest she told little by little, over the years, when Heaven itself suggested that she do so or when her superiors in the Order asked her. We only know about the intense spiritual life of Francisco and Jacinta, the sacrifices that they made, and their thoughts and wishes, because Lucia herself told us about them. Her whole life has been spent spreading the news about the apparitions that took place in Fatima in 1917.
Even now we still hear talk of the ‘third secret of Fatima’ which has still not been revealed. But even the first and second secrets were only revealed by Lucia many years after the apparitions. The secrets were revealed by Our Lady when she appeared to the three children on 13 July, 1917, but she had told them not to mention it to anyone at that time.

When did Lucia reveal the first two secrets?
She received permission to reveal the first two parts in 1927. Our Lady appeared to her while she was praying in the novices’ chapel in Tuy, in Spain, and told her that she could make them public. The first one regarded a vision of hell and the early death of Francisco and Jacinta; the second referred to the Second World War, the spreading across the world of the scourge of communism, and the prediction that Russia would, in the end, convert.
Lucia told all these things first to her confessor and then wrote it in a memoir. But no one took what she had said into consideration. Only after the World War II, when people realised that everything Our Lady had said at Fatima had come true, did people begin to believe what the Virgin had revealed.

What about the third secret?
Lucia received permission to reveal it in 1941, but only to the Pope. She was still in the convent of Tuy. Our Lady appeared to her and told her to write down that part of the secret and send it to the Pope. Lucia did what she had been told, attaching to her report a letter which said that the Pope could, if he considered it wise to do so, make public the content of that secret after 1960. It is not known if the Pope, who at that time was Pius XII, read Lucia’s report. In 1959, John XXIII read the secret, but he decided it would be unwise to reveal the contents of it. Pope Paul VI and John Paul II did likewise. And so the third secret is still... a secret.

From what you have said we understand that Lucia has had other visions of Our Lady.
Certainly. She herself said so when she told of how she had received permission to reveal the other secrets.